Chris Rock on Economics

by publius

Megan McArdle has an interesting response to the “irrationality” argument below. She raises several interesting points (including that it’s perhaps not all that irrational), but I want to focus specifically on the observation that liberals act irrationally too. For instance, if it’s irrational for working class people to support Republican economic policies, then surely it’s just as irrational for rich liberals to support Democratic policies. Emotional loyalties run both ways, after all.

That’s a fair point. One reason, though, why I think the rich liberals’ behavior is relatively more rational is because of the concept of diminishing marginal utility of wealth. As people’s wealth increases, the utility of the added dollar becomes worth progressively less. For instance, increasing a salary from $40K to $60K adds far more utility than increasing a salary from $10 million to $10.02 million. Thus, for wealthier people, advocating for higher taxes in exchange for better services doesn’t strike as directly at one’s financial well-being.

To see another example of this concept, check out Chris Rock’s take on alimony and OJ beginning at about 3:00 (not safe for work, though hopefully you already know that):

Comments

[Jason Williams]

"...then surely it’s just as irrational for rich liberals to support Democratic policies."

Only if you're talking solely about egoistic self interest. However I'm sure many rich liberals think more on a "what's right" policy judgment perspective. It can be plenty rational to support the most ethically sound policies even if they don't give you the most money in the pocket.

[nanook]

Point taken, but .01 million is only $10,000 - so of course its smaller than $20,000.

[ajay]

Well, there's also 1) the social stability argument - the main benefit the rich get from government is a social structure that allows them to continue being rich, rather than running into either the rise of an extremist government which seizes all their property and distributes it to the poor, or order completely breaking down and the looters coming over the walls. It might even be worth paying an extra 1% of total wealth (rather than income) if this significantly reduces the chance of losing the other 99%.

Or: 2) for many of the very rich, part of what allows them to keep being rich is the public's perception of them (especially true of entertainers, but not exclusively; a 'controversial' CEO might find it more difficult to get jobs, for example) and you might create this perception by eg supporting liberal causes. (Or you might not, depending on your target audience - look what harm it did the Dixie Chicks, for example.) People might not go to see movies with Meg Astar in them if they knew Meg was a right-wing screw-the-poor type.

Or, of course, 3) they may derive utility from the personal satisfaction and feeling of moral rectitude that comes with supporting liberal causes, which would outweigh the (small, because of diminishing returns) loss of utility that paying higher taxes causes. Why might a 1960s (white) actor have supported civil rights, rather than spending the time doing something else and getting paid for it? No financial gain involved (absent 2 above), but maybe feeling like a morally good person is worth it.

4) Or it may be a version of Henry Ford's argument that he should pay his workers enough that they can afford to buy his cars - a multi-millionaire author has a vested interest in a literate public, for example.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Thus, for wealthier people, advocating for higher taxes in exchange for better services doesn’t strike as directly at one’s financial well-being."

Doesn't particularly benefit them, either, given that those services are almost exclusively to benefit somebody else. I suspect it's more of an "I've got mine, now it's time to keep down the competition." thing: Those who are already wealthy will not be impoverished by high marginal taxes, because they can shelter their wealth, but people busy climbing the ladder are fully exposed, so the wealthy by advocating higher marginal taxes are really trying to keep anybody else from entering their ranks.

[publius]

thanks nanook - fixed

[Bruce Baugh]

Contra Brett, a whole lot of what the government does primarily benefits those with lots of assets. The more you have and the more widely your connections range, the more important things like reliable infrastructure and enforcement of contracts are.

Ajay's first point is of course Bismarck's rationale for an extensive social service system, and the argument is just as sound now.

[someotherdude]

Chris Rock: Before I started comedy, I used to work at McDonald's making minimum wage. You know what that means when someone pays you minimum wage? You know what your boss was trying to say? It's like, "Hey if I could pay you less, I would, but it's against the law."

[hilzoy]

Plus, Obama's argument was: people in small towns see that they can't have any actual effect on economic policy, since the government doesn't take their views into account anyways. This is not true for rich people, who are quite empowered, thank you very much. So it wouldn't apply to them, I think.

[Jason Bridges]

Publius, I think you concede too much when you describe as a "fair point" the claim that the irrationality of the working class who support Republican economic policies is matched by the irrationality of the rich who support Democratic economic policies.

To be "irrational", in the context of this discussion, is to support policies that are opposed to one's interests. We can't know whether someone is irrational, in this sense, unless we know her interests.

To believe that working class people are irrational in supporting Republican economic policies, we need to assume that these working class people have strong interests (interests that trump other potentially competing interests) in job protections and stability, income sufficient to afford health care and other basics, etc.

To believe that rich people are irrational if they support Democratic economic policies, we need to assume that these people have strong interests (interests that trump other potentially competing interests) in...what? Clearly, the only possibility is maximizing wealth. This interest must be greater, for all these people (who already have comfort, economic stability, etc. in their lives), than an interest in, say, justice. How does McArdle know this to be so of the psychology of rich Democrats? Presumably, they would claim otherwise. Would they be lying?

In fact, I don't think it's a dubious empirical assumption at the bottom of McArdle's claim. It's a conceptual equation of the idea of interest with the idea of self-interest, with the latter category drawn narrowly to include, in effect, only material acquisition. Given that equation, one counts as "irrational" insofar as one supports any policy that doesn't contribute the most, among the alternatives, to increasing one's wealth. So understood, rich Democrats are indeed "irrational". That's fine to acknowledge so long as we don't let the normative connotations of the ordinary English word "rational" trick us into caring about this near-truistic observation.

[FlyOnTneWall]

"Thus, for wealthier people, advocating for higher taxes in exchange for better services doesn’t strike as directly at one’s financial well-being."

By and large, among the affluent, it's the professional classes which increasingly lean toward Democrats, and business people who remain staunchly Republican. A partner at a law firm who earns $300k/annum is far more likely than a small businessman earning the same amount to vote for a Democratic candidate. Similarly, a school teacher (even in a non-unionized district) is more likely to vote for a Democrat than a retail worker, even if they're bringing home the same pay. I can rig up economic models and rationales in an effort to explain why the folks who think the way I do are 'rational,' and those who disagree deluded (or victim to a false consciousness). But I really think that's fundamentally misleading. When two sets of actors with the same economic incentives are acting in diametrically opposed ways, there's something more interesting at play: culture.

Why is it, Publius, that you exhibit such penetrating insight into the social valences of cultural issues - and yet insist on treating economic views differently?

I'd contend that there's no fundamental divide among these issues. To use your example, if I believed that abortion constituted the ending of a life, I'd oppose it. But here's the key point - I'd oppose it even if that ran contrary to my own self-interest. That's the way morality works; it's often inconvenient. Yet we rarely ask why religious Catholics oppose abortion even when they'd be better off with the flexibility to end inconvenient pregnancies. We don't try to rig models to explain why opposing abortion really is in their best interest. We have no trouble accepting that they've made a moral judgment, and are prepared to shoulder the consequences in the service of an important ideal.

Yet somehow, because a bunch of rational-choice theorists have been running around for decades insisting that people ought to be profit-maximizing machines, we don't apply the same insights to financial affairs. There's an abundance of evidence that people will forego the chance to maximize their own gain under a wide variety of different circumstaces. to extend our example, a Catholic physician may decline an offer of a huge payment to perform an abortion on moral grounds. We all understand and accept that. Yet if a blue-collar worker votes against unions because he feels they constrain his individual freedom, we assume he's been misled or deluded. We don't grant similar respect to his expression of ideals. If a working-class voter opposes progressive taxation, on the grounds that the government shouldn't be punishing people for success, we assume he's been misled by propoganda. But what if that voter actually believes that a flat tax is fairest, even if it will hit him relatively hard?

To push this a step further, we rarely have similar qualms about people who agree with us. If a rich person decides to support progressive taxation, we're happy to ascribe all sorts of motivations - none of them involving delusion or false consciousness. I happen to think that 'declining marginal utility' is bunk. Perhaps a few affluent folks actually think that way. But the declining marginal utility of their wealth hasn't constrained any number of executives from pursuing exorbitant pay packages nor from committing fraud to vest them. It hasn't stopped, say, the Waltons from funding an anti-tax crusade, despite having more money than they can spend in a lifetime. People's love for money is not a function of rational assessments - it is an expression of personal convictions and values. Thus, the Waltons are as greedy as Warren Buffet is generous. That's not a function of their roughly commensurate wealth - rather, the ways in which they use and approach wealth are shaped by their underlying values.

So let's abandon, once and for all, the chimera of "false consciousness." The only falsehood at play here is that notion that people always act to maximize monetary profit when they have the full information available. In fact, people tend to act in accordance with their underlying beliefs. When those beliefs allow them to profit, they do. When those beliefs constrain them, they forego profit. It's true of the rich, as well as the poor. And it suggests something interesting. Perhaps we ought to stop trying to persuade voters to support Democrats because we'll help them economically - and begin to argue that our policies are fundamentally fair and right. Obama's started to do that - it's part of his frame of 'hope' and 'change' - and he's had some substantial measure of success selling swing voters on essentially the same set of policies pushed by Dems for a generation. You'll note that Republicans almost always frame their proposals in terms of American values and fairness - that a 'death tax,' for example, is just wrong. Countering, as Dems often have, that the tax only hits the wealthy is remarkably inneffective. (That's the economic interest argument.) Saying instead that the tax helps level the playing field and limits the entrenchment of privilege might work a lot better, particularly if we gave it a catchy name - the "Inherited Fortunes Tax," for example. It's a thought.

[Sebastian]

Hmm, just riffing here, but there here are some thoughts:

Safety Net/Welfare entitlement distinction.

Democrats frame many of their systems as saving you if through no fault of your own you run into trouble. That system clearly (at least to me) seems to be in their best interest. But the flip side is that at least among the working class people I know (and no I don't have polls) there is an INTENSE dislike for the people who work the system so they can skate by without working. They all have an uncle or brother or sister who lives at home and leaches the life out of their harder working mother or father or whatever. Republicans have long tried to make distinctions between safety nets and giving money to people like that. For many of the people I know (again I don't know of any polls), they aren't even remotely interested in paying taxes to help their deadbeat brother/uncle/sister live an even better life while mooching off their father/mother/wife's sister.

[Gus]

"Megan McCardle has an interesting response..." I had to read those words a few times to make sure I read them correctly.

[Sebastian]

Interestingly, right after I wrote my previous comment I clicked over to this by Kevin Drum:

The second point is a more interesting one: namely that working class communities are more concerned about the breakdown of traditional mores because it's working class communities that are most seriously affected by the breakdown of traditional mores.

...

Middle class whites don't care much about rising divorce rates, for example, because (a) divorce rates aren't that high among middle class whites and (b) divorce isn't all that catastrophic when it does happen. Working class communities, however, have much higher divorce rates and are therefore naturally more sensitive to its effects. That's especially true since the economic effects of divorce are far more dire for low-income families than they are for higher-income families.

I think this is in the same vein as my comment. The working class responds to appeals about deadbeat abusers of government entitlements because they see them more. So from the point of view of Democrats they vote 'against their own interest' because they see the negative effect of certain government programs more acutely than your average person in the middle class. (They are also more likely to be served by a crappy and overcrowded DMV and a horrific school system than a middle class liberal in the 'burbs and thus less likely to be thrilled with how the government actually operates).

[Ugh]

They are also more likely to be served by a crappy and overcrowded DMV and a horrific school system than a middle class liberal in the 'burbs and thus less likely to be thrilled with how the government actually operates.

I'm not sure this is exclusive to government services, as anytime I've been in a Target, or Home Depot, Toys 'R Us, or whatever, in a working class neighborhood it's been much sh!ttier, in terms of products, service, and appearance, than the same brand store in well off neighborhoods.

[magistra]

So let's abandon, once and for all, the chimera of "false consciousness."

Is it a chimera when people in polls think that they will be affected by inheritance tax at much lower earnings levels than is the case? Or the vast number who are wrong about such facts as whether they're in the top 1% of earners or what the median wage is or how many immigrants there are in the country? It is been posible repeatedly to show that a large proportion of people (in the US and elsewhere) are wrong about such facts, and they are almost always wrong in the direction that the media/politicans have pushed the argument (e.g. they don't get the number of immigrants too low). When polls show most people actually know facts like this, then it's time to say we can abandon 'false consciousness'.

[someotherdude]

The abortion issue and gays-causing-divorces (or whoever is the latest cause of divorces) issue wouldn’t bother me so much, if I believed the Republican Party was really going to do something about it. It seems obvious that Republicans bang that drum with no intention about doing much about it. Poor women in Mississippi may have a tougher time getting an abortion and gay’s will get blamed for all the sexual confusion straights are experiencing, however it’s only tax-cuts and right-wing welfare which seems to get Republican attention.
Before the last election Bush came out and announced that he would be fighting for a marriage protection clause to the Constitution, where did that go?
Right-Wing economic theories seems to be the only thing Republicans actually do stuff about, spending is only curtailed when it deals with the poor. This is what upsets working-class folks in communities of color who have been staunchly pro-Democratic. The Reagan Democrats handed over manufacturing jobs to folks who were itching to get rid of unions, and conservative Dems embraced right-wing economic theories when they saw where the wind was blowing.

[KCinDC]

What magistra said. The use of "death tax" isn't just clever marketing. It's a lie, because it spreads the false idea that everyone who dies pays it.

It's not elitist to notice that large portions of the voting public have beliefs that are incontrovertibly false, to fear that those false beliefs affect their voting, and to want to remedy that situation.

[Sebastian]

"It's not elitist to notice that large portions of the voting public have beliefs that are incontrovertibly false, to fear that those false beliefs affect their voting, and to want to remedy that situation."

Excellent. Let's talk about the fact that Roe doesn't allow 2nd trimester restrictions. ;)

[cityyear95]

"Excellent. Let's talk about the fact that Roe doesn't allow 2nd trimester restrictions."

Yes, let's. To me, progressivism is first and foremost about the dissemination of accurate information so that voters can make informed choices. To the extent that any Democrats seek to hinder this type of education, I don't see them as progressive.

Ultimately, I believe that Democrats will win on the merits on virtually every issue, so long as voters have all the _accurate_ information and good-faith arguments in front of them to work with. There are certainly some exceptions, but overall I think that the vast majority of information suppression and misinformation comes from conservative end of the spectrum. And there's no better example than the right-wing approach to sex-ed.

[Phil]

But here's the key point - I'd oppose it even if that ran contrary to my own self-interest. That's the way morality works; it's often inconvenient. Yet we rarely ask why religious Catholics oppose abortion even when they'd be better off with the flexibility to end inconvenient pregnancies. We don't try to rig models to explain why opposing abortion really is in their best interest. We have no trouble accepting that they've made a moral judgment, and are prepared to shoulder the consequences in the service of an important ideal.

Adorable.

How many of those who are apparently voting against their self-interest merely sneak off to the abortion clinic anyway? Or leave their babies in dumpsters or in piles of sheets in the basement? Jesurgislac, I believe, has some interesting statistics on that matter.

Consequences are something people generally want other people to suffer; when it comes to themselves, they'll look for the loophole every time. Weaseling out of things is, after all, what separates us from the animals. (Except the weasel.)

[hf]

Saying instead that the tax helps level the playing field and limits the entrenchment of privilege might work a lot better, particularly if we gave it a catchy name - the "Inherited Fortunes Tax," for example. It's a thought.

We've been talking about the Paris Hilton Tax for a long time. But I think millionaire pundits have avoided this term, doubtless for some compelling moral reason.

[Sebastian]

"Consequences are something people generally want other people to suffer; when it comes to themselves, they'll look for the loophole every time."

And taxes are what progressives want rich people to pay.

Or maybe these types of generalizations are something that isn't very helpful.

[Turbulence]

"Consequences are something people generally want other people to suffer; when it comes to themselves, they'll look for the loophole every time."

And taxes are what progressives want rich people to pay. Or maybe these types of generalizations are something that isn't very helpful.

That seems like a non-sequitur. Everyone wants the rich to pay taxes, right? Do you think non-progressives believe the rich should pay no taxes at all?

A coherent comparison would have been if you said that progressives want other people to pay taxes but don't want to pay taxes themselves. That's probably even correct -- no one wants to pay taxes. But what people want is much less important that what they do. In the real world, people who oppose abortions categorically, like evangelical protestants, actually have abortions quite often*. In contrast, I'm aware of no evidence that progressives are more prone to tax evasion than any other political group. I'd like to see some evidence on that score if you have it.

*Specifically, consider this study from 1995 showing that born again or evangelical white protestants comprised 3.2% of abortion patients while white catholics comprise 13.5% of abortion patients.

[Anarch]

And taxes are what progressives want rich people to pay.

But that's actually true.

We just don't want them to be the only ones paying.

[Richard]

I usually like this blog a lot, but this post is just bizarre. As Jason Williams and FlyOnTheWall point out, there's nothing "irrational" about voting for what you think is the right policy, as opposed to what's in your narrow self-interest.

Cf. Anthony Appiah:

"How, in the first Bush administration, did the movement to repeal the estate tax prevail? Not just because it was craftily renamed the "death tax." The number of Americans who told pollsters that they opposed the "death tax" was just a few percentage points higher than the number who said they opposed the "estate tax." As Yale scholars Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro have shown, it mattered more that proponents of repeal made a moral argument (however specious): that the tax was unfair because, for one thing, it involved taxing earnings twice.

Defenders of the tax typically countered with an appeal to self-interest: But you're not paying it, because it applies to just 2 percent of households. They didn't quite grasp how powerful appeals to fairness are. In fact, when the barnstorming Teddy Roosevelt proposed the tax a century ago, he made the case for it precisely in terms of fairness: He talked about what the wealthy owe to a nation that made their success possible."

[russell]

there's nothing "irrational" about voting for what you think is the right policy, as opposed to what's in your narrow self-interest.

I think this is right on, and a very accurate characterization of actual voting behavior.

There are definitely lots of folks who vote strictly in their own, narrow interest, but there are also lots who do not. My guess is that the latter are the larger group.

It's also not all-or-nothing in either direction. Folks vote for different things, and different people, for different reasons.

Most people are not motivated purely by an economic calculus.

Thanks -

[Dan S.]

Quoted from K-Drum: "The second point is a more interesting one: namely that working class communities are more concerned about the breakdown of traditional mores because it's working class communities that are most seriously affected by the breakdown of traditional mores."

Of course, this is one more reason why it's deeply irrational for working-class folks to support GOP economic policies, since it's these policies that constantly undermine and grind down traditional mores; in fact, they're one reason working class communities are so seriously affected by such issues.

"If a working-class voter opposes progressive taxation, on the grounds that the government shouldn't be punishing people for success, we assume he's been misled by propoganda. But what if that voter actually believes that a flat tax is fairest . . .?"

As everyone's been pointing out, these are by no means mutually exclusive; indeed, they're often mutually inclusive. To bounce off what magistra and KCinDC said, just look at the marketing strategies used by the early Bush II admin and its allies to push tax cuts mainly for the upper-upper class. The big-print message wasn't that large chunks of our country's revenue was to be funneled back to the richest of the rich - so much so that the merely quite wealthy have become increasingly resentful - as was only fair, given their great contributions and hard work. It was that the tax cuts were going to help the 'middle class,' the average joes and janes, both directly and through boosting 'the economy.

Likewise, the big print message for getting rid of the estate tax (my term, 'the diamond doggy collar tax,' somehow never caught on, sigh . . .) wasn't that idle heirs and heiresses were going to be rewarded for their hard work & good judgement in ancestor-selection by additional multi-million dollar inheritance windfalls that could otherwise go to things like roads, defense, schools, libraries, police, or even social security - after all, what could be fairer? Nope, it was that the big bad gubmint was destroying good ol' family farms and family-owned businesses through an wide-reaching, rigid and incredibly burdensome 'death tax' (and quite possibly spending the money on brown-skinned welfare cheats, but this wasn't made explicit, iirc, ). The double taxation/fairness stuff - Grover Norquist's incredibly offensive rantings about how the morality of the estate tax is the morality of the Holocaust on down - was a necessary, desperate, and often successful attempt to muddy the issue, given how vulnerable it is on this score - not the main strategy.

[now_what]

Megan McArdle has an interesting response

Sadly, no. No she doesn't. She has a response that contains such nuggets of wisdom as:

Small communities are also extremely attuned to property rights, because things like property lines matter to them in ways that they don't matter to city dwellers

Property lines don't matter to city dwellers? You mean the city dwellers that pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of parking their car in a certain space? Property lines don't matter to them? The city dwellers that trade in the rights to the view above a building? WTF? This is interesting to you? In what way?

No, she does not have an interesting response, unless you have an unusual, and probably unhealthy, interest in poorly argued disinformation.

Most people are not motivated purely by an economic calculus.

Not purely, but primarily. The best predictor for the success of incumbent politicians is the health of the economy a few months prior to elections.

So no, voters are not attempting to project which politicians ideas are likely to be most lucrative for them, since most of the politicians' ideas aren't going to make it into law, and it is impossible to predict precisely the manner in which the laws that do get enacted will affect a voter a few years out. They are simply voting thumbs up or thumbs down on the recent past.

Now if you were a really smart incumbent politician, you could arrange it so the best financial impacts of your policies were felt a few months before an election. So, which is it...was Bush unable to do this, or were past instances of good economic performance immediately prior to an election with a Republican in office random occurrences, or was Bush too incompetent to pull the trick off, or does Bush think that since he isn't running for election, why bother, or is he so principled that he refuses to entertain such a Rovian suggestion?

[Gary Farber]

Small communities are also extremely attuned to property rights, because things like property lines matter to them in ways that they don't matter to city dwellers

Property lines don't matter to city dwellers?

Regardless of the rest of anyone's argument, one immediately notes that that's not what she wrote.

"...in ways that they don't matter" does not, in fact, mean "don't matter at all."

It does not mean "this thing doesn't matter."

It means "in ways that matter differently," or "this thing matters to those people in other ways that [allegedly] don't matter to city dwellers."

The claim can most certainly be argued with, but it's not the claim you're arguing with.

[bad Jim]

I'm a rich liberal, and I find it's in my interest to support Democrats. For one thing, the economy does better when the president is a Democrat, which means I make more money from my investments. So what if my taxes are higher? My income is higher as well.

Back when I was in business, our company had a department whose main task was to administer things like health care and retirement. Every year the health plan became more expensive and more restrictive. Having good benefits was critical to being the sort of company we wanted to be - we worked there too - and it was not helpful to have to announce the annual downgrade in the health plan. A glance at the policies of our trading partners makes it painfully obvious that better alternatives are easily available.

Lastly: as a rich liberal, I make charitable contributions to numerous organizations whose aims, in a more sanely constituted country, would be considered general obligations and funded through taxes. I'd much prefer bestowing my ill-gotten gains on random acts of kindness and senseless beauty, secure in the knowledge that public health and education were adequately funded.

[Xeynon]

Late to the party this time, and several of the points I would have made have already been made as well as is possible by others. Just to add my two cents:

There are definitely lots of folks who vote strictly in their own, narrow interest, but there are also lots who do not. My guess is that the latter are the larger group.

I think that's right. I'm a teacher by profession and make less than 30K a year, but I can't say that really enters into my thought process when I think about tax policy.

Of course, this is one more reason why it's deeply irrational for working-class folks to support GOP economic policies, since it's these policies that constantly undermine and grind down traditional mores; in fact, they're one reason working class communities are so seriously affected by such issues.

This is an excellent point. Economic distress pretty clearly does contribute to drug use, crime, high divorce rates, and the like. While I don't think the stock liberal playbook is necessarily the way to reinvigorate economically depressed communities, liberals are absolutely correct in diagnosing the problem. The problem is, they don't make this point clearly or frequently enough.

A lot of the battle is lost by how issues are framed. Many liberals are inclined to discuss problems like the drug epidemic or teen pregnancy by doing things like denouncing high incarceration rates for young black men or the insisting on the right to unfettered access to abortion for pregnant 15 year olds. This is exactly the wrong tack to take, because it makes liberals come across as either Marxist determinist types arguing that people aren't responsible for their own actions, or libertines. Both impressions push the buttons of culturally conservative voters, who generally very much hold to the American ideals that where you are in life is largely a function of where you choose to be, and that you ought to be responsible for the consequences of your own decisions. IMO, Dems would have more success with Reagan Democrats if they emphasized the connection not between poverty and social pathology, but rather the connection between economic prosperity and solving social pathology, and framed their policies on poverty as "we'll do things to make jobs and opportunities more plentiful in your communities and give you the tools to fix problems like drug use and teen pregnancy" rather than "we'll raise taxes on those nasty rich people" and "we'll give you services that other people pay for". Of course, it wouldn't hurt for the big city wing of the party to be a bit less stridently self-righteous about hot button issues like religion and guns.

[Jesurgislac]

Xeynon: Many liberals are inclined to discuss problems like the drug epidemic or teen pregnancy by doing things like denouncing high incarceration rates for young black men or the insisting on the right to unfettered access to abortion for pregnant 15 year olds. This is exactly the wrong tack to take, because it makes liberals come across as either Marxist determinist types arguing that people aren't responsible for their own actions, or libertines.

"Come across" to whom?

When I hear of someone arguing that a 15-year-old girl should be forced through pregnancy and childbirth against her will, I think of child abuse: a girl that age ought to be strongly encouraged to protect her health and her future ability to bear children whom she will be able to care for, by terminating a pregnancy that resulted from statutory rape. Certainly she ought not to be forced to endure a pregnancy she wants to terminate. Your suggestion that she should be so forced, that only a libertine would refrain from forcing a 15-year-old girl in that position, strikes me as exactly backwards.

That is to say, of course I support "unfettered access" to abortion for girls too young to safely bear children and far too young to be able to economically support a child. To argue that this is "libertine" or "irresponsible" seems not merely an ugly way of framing a principled opposition to child abuse, but a profoundly immoral frame.

[Jesurgislac]

Oh, and I hardly think it's "irresponsible" or "Marxist" to say that there's something severely wrong with a country where 1 in 138 people is in jail (BBC, 2005) and where (HRW, 2002)

· In twelve states, between 10 and 15 percent of adult black men are incarcerated.

· In ten states, between 5 and 10 percent of black adults are incarcerated.

· In twelve states, black men are incarcerated at rates between twelve and sixteen times greater than those of white men.

· In fifteen states, black women are incarcerated at rates between ten and thirty-five times greater than those of white women.

· In six states, black youth under age eighteen are incarcerated in adult facilities at rates between twelve and twenty-five times greater than those of white youth.

The US has the highest prison rate in the world, and really remarkable racial disparities in imprisonment rates.

Either Americans are just wickeder, nastier, more violent, more criminal, than the citizens of any other country in the world, or else...

And you know: I go for the "or else". Anti-American socialist leftie bitkah though I am, I do not believe that Americans are so much violently worse than anyone else: I think your government just likes to lock you up more often.

[Phil]

And taxes are what progressives want rich people to pay.

Or maybe these types of generalizations are something that isn't very helpful.

How amusing that I make a general observation about "people," and you respond with what you imagine is a trenchant partistan political observation. (Albeit one easily refuted, as seen in Turbulence's response.)

Unfortunately for you, the helpfulness of what I said has no bearing on whether it is correct, which it is. And which one has to look no further than our political class to confirm.

John McCain attempts to wiggle out from under campaign finance laws he himself helped enact.

Hillary Clinton positions herself as champion of the working people while her campaign stiffs small business owners all along the campaign trail.

Then there was the infamous opinion piece by . . . oh, geez, someone at Red State? . . . that argued that there's no such thing as hypocrisy because moralist demagogues -- and specifically anti-gay activists and legislators -- are at least attempting to keep others from sinful activity even if they themselves fall short.

You usually see this stuff manifest itself in the statement, "I generally believe in X, but . . . " when one finds oneself on the wrong end of a policy he or she professes to believe in. Like when a tough-on-crime person gets pulled over doing 70 in a 35.

Are you really, really, going to argue against the proposition, Sebastian, that a significant percentage of people more often than not will attempt to evade the consequences of acts that they publicly profess that people should suffer for those acts.

Lotsa luck.

[ajay]

Brett: Doesn't particularly benefit them [the rich], either, given that those services are almost exclusively to benefit somebody else.

In Brett's world, you see, the rich never use the toilet, drink tap water, drive on roads, eat food (food safety inspectors), fly (air traffic control), use money, enter into contracts, call the police, use the law courts, breathe air, buy anything (product safety and consumer rights), exercise copyright, or put money in banks. They live in little hermetically sealed bubbles packed with all their gold coins.

[Anarch]

Like when a tough-on-crime person gets pulled over doing 70 in a 35.

Or when a "abstinence until marriage" type meets someone they really, really like. And gets knocked up.

[FlyOnTneWall]

Richard:

Thanks for bringing the Appiah quote to my attention - hadn't seen that before, and I'm grateful to have some empirical backing for my purely intuitional claims.

I'm struck that so many commenters seem to assume that if only Americans could be made aware of the real facts, they'd all vote for Democrats. I'm not sure that's so. For one thing, it assumes that everyone will freight a given piece of data with equal significance. In my experience, however, we typically invest those facts which accord with our presuppositions with the greatest weight. So if you present a smorgasbord of facts to your average voter, they'll tend to seize upon those which support their point of view, and discount those which do not.

So it's not just a matter of telling voters that only a tiny fraction of the most affluent taxpayers end up shouldering the estate tax - it's about convincing them that that fact is significant, even controlling. We tend to assume that others will interpret factual data the same way that we ourselves do. We think of ourselves, after all, as perfectly logical, and have difficulty perceiving that we filter our perceptions of the world through a whole array of beliefs and values.

Recognizing that people aren't paying attention to the facts that we ourselves find most important not simply because they've been bamboozled is the first step to persuading them of our point of view. That acknowledgement suggests that we need to give them not just a new set of facts, but a new frame of reference with which to interpret those facts. And that gets back to Appiah's point. People didn't like the estate tax because it seemed unfair - why should you have to pay a second round of taxes on earnings just because someone dies? That sense of unfairness left them predisposed to certain arguments - that the tax hurt small-businesses and family farms, for example. You can't counter that by pointing to the small number actually affected by the tax - that's mistaking the symptom for the cause. The way to counter the argument is to make the case for its fairness: by pointing out that the rich got that way because America endowed them with opportunity, and that the tax preserves the chance for others to have similar opportunities.

And that's broadly true of voters who cast ballots "against their economic interests." They do so not because they're stupid, and not because - as Drum would have it - social values are somehow more important in their lives than in the lives of Democratic voters. We're not going to win them back by telling them they're stupid, that they've been fooled, or that the facts contradict their beliefs. We'll win them over by showing how our policies actually accord with their beliefs. That if they care about preserving family, gay marriage is a boon and not a curse. That progressive taxation is about ensuring a fair playing field, and not about penalizing the succesful. That not waging ill-advised wars overseas will actually strengthen our national security. In other words, by abandoning the futile quest to provide them with 'facts' that will change their beliefs to match our policies, and demonstrating that our policies actually accord with those beliefs.

[just me]

I live in and work in a school in a poor, low income community. One portion of the community is working class the other portion is "doesn't work at all"

There is real dislike and disdain from those who works for those, they view as gaming the system. I think in a working class community, the working class don't really see the wealthy, so much as those who are, from their perspective at least, getting something for nothing. They come in contact far more in their day to day lives with the "not working" rather than the wealthy.

I think resentment can easily build up, when you feel like you are busting your butt everyday working to support your family and pay your bills and pay your taxes, while the guy who does nothing for a check from the government doesn't bust anything.

Maybe some of that resentment is misplaced, but when the "program" or government solution seems framed tomake things easier for the non working person, I can see voting against the guy proposing it.

I remember back in the 90's when they wanted to reform welfare, Bill Clinton was drug kicking and screaming to sign the bill. In the end he did it, because it had huge support, especially among working class people.

I also think a lot of these arguments boil down to "working class people are too stupid to vote the way we want them too" and that isn't going to win brownie points either.

I agree that appeals to fairness work among working class people, and I think in general they work among everyone.

You also have to account for the fact that sometimes the right solutions from either party to a given problem aren't necessarily right and wrong or black and white-and there should be room for healthy debate without calling one group stupid, naive, or whatever.

[Gregory]

I'm struck that so many commenters seem to assume that if only Americans could be made aware of the real facts, they'd all vote for Democrats. I'm not sure that's so.

Why? The Republican propaganda machine certainly seems to think so. The dishonesty of the "death tax" trope has already been addressed, but your point about so-called "double taxation" is yet another example of the kind of dishonest framing Republicans have used to fix this policy. The person receiving the inheritance has never paid taxes on it, and it's no more of a "double taxation" to have that transfer of wealth taxed than any other transaction. (See also: the bogus argument over so-called "partial birth abortion", a fabricated and emotionally loaded term that the so-called "liberal media" dutifully adopted.)

It isn't "elitist" or "condescending" to call out the flagrant dishonesty of Republican positions, and it's been a serious mistake, over the past few decades, for Democrats to concede that the Grover Norquist / New Gingrich crowd argues in anything like good faith.

If the GOP has to resort to flagrantly dishonest framing to push their agenda -- and we can see that they do nothing but -- it's a tacit admission even on the part of the Democrats' political opposition that the progressive cause does indeed win on the merits.

[Gregory]

Italico begonus!

By the way, I also was baffled by the construction "Megan McArdle has an interesting response." I wish I'd thought of Roy Edroso's brilliant characterization "lipstick libertarian."

[Jesurgislac]

FlyOnTheWall: People didn't like the estate tax because it seemed unfair - why should you have to pay a second round of taxes on earnings just because someone dies?

People didn't like the estate tax because they were told it was unfair.

The sales tax is explicitly a second round of taxes on earnings, and hits everyone: the poorest people are the most affected by it. When was the last time you saw anyone complain that the sales tax was unfair? And when was the last time you saw someone complain that "some people" in the US don't pay any tax?

Complaints about the estate tax from the few people affected by it, arguing that it was not fair that just because they would inherit more money than most people see in a lifetime they would be expected to pay a tax on that inheritance, would sound pathetically self-obsessed and greedy.

But the few people affected by the estate tax are disproportionately more powerful than the many people affected by the sales tax: they've orchestrated a very successful spin campaign to claim that it's not fair that when they inherit large sums, they have to pay tax on those large sums. Part of that spin campaign includes a stack of lies and misleading statements to make the vast majority of people, who never will see anything like the sums which those affected will receive after tax, feel somehow included in the troubles of the very richest.

[Slartibartfast]

People didn't like the estate tax because they were told it was unfair.

Oh, sure. No one thinks anything is unfair until they're told to think that. And, likewise, nothing is unfair if you're told that it is, before figuring it out for yourself. It's kind of a constantly-shifting landscape of fairness goalposts.

[Sebastian]

"Are you really, really, going to argue against the proposition, Sebastian, that a significant percentage of people more often than not will attempt to evade the consequences of acts that they publicly profess that people should suffer for those acts."

Nope.

I'm going to argue that the case is generalizable well beyond that.

People in general want 'others' to pay the costs for almost anything you can discuss. If I politically have problems with divorce, I may not feel so strongly if my husband is beating me. If I politically want a new program, I'm also statistically likely to be interested in having the rich pay for more of it than I do. A huge part of the libertarian critique is based on that insight so of course I'm not really, really, really going to argue against it.

I'm arguing against the utility of pretending that very human mode is largely restricted to conservatives. I'm arguing that that very human instinct has very little explanatory force in explaining the differences between conservatives and liberals. So comments like "Consequences are something people generally want other people to suffer; when it comes to themselves, they'll look for the loophole every time." don't really explain why conservatives have different views than liberals. It would be like mentioning that the sky is blue or that grass is green when watered and brown when not.

[bc]

a girl that age ought to be strongly encouraged to protect her health and her future ability to bear children whom she will be able to care for, by terminating a pregnancy that resulted from statutory rape.

A girl that age should be strongly encouraged to not be having sex at 15. You just proved Xeynon's point. He says "teen pregnancy" and you argue for unfettered access to abortion apparently thinking any restriction is akin to child abuse.

By extension to what Xeynon said, I generally agree that many liberal policies come across to conservatives as fixing the symptom and not the problem (the problem often, but not always, being "choice" related). Too much teen pregnancy, provide abortion. Don't solve the underlying cause of crime, reduce the rate of incarceration. Don't provide economic opportunity, redistribute the income.

I realize that this is a gross oversimplification and not a very accurate one at that as to the actual merits of many policies. But I think the perception is accurate on a broad scale.

[Jesurgislac]

bc: A girl that age should be strongly encouraged to not be having sex at 15.

Irrelevant.

A girl that age, or any age, ought to be able to access contraception and to have been brought up with self-confidence and self-awareness to have sex only when she wanted to. That's the policy in the Netherlands, and that's why they have the lowest rate of teen pregnancy and teenage abortion in the world.

But, irrelevant.

Xeynon said: or the insisting on the right to unfettered access to abortion for pregnant 15 year olds.

We were discussing a pregnant 15-year-old girl. Telling her she ought not to have sex isn't going to help one whit.

bc: You just proved Xeynon's point. He says "teen pregnancy" and you argue for unfettered access to abortion apparently thinking any restriction is akin to child abuse.

Of course, bc. How is forcing a 15-year-old girl to have a baby against her will not child abuse? Isn't a 15-year-old girl a child? Isn't it abusive to force her through pregnancy and childbirth when she wants to have an abortion?

Too much teen pregnancy, provide abortion.

For any teenage pregnancy, provide access to abortion, yes. Otherwise, you have a policy that amounts to child abuse.

Too much teen pregnancy means: teenagers are having sex, as they will, and are not being given access to good sex education ("abstinence education" is strongly correlated with teenage pregnancy) and do not have access to contraception. The solution is to require schools (and parents, for homeschooled kids) to provide sex education, and to legally mandate free access to contraception.

Don't solve the underlying cause of crime, reduce the rate of incarceration.

If people are being unjustly imprisoned - and either the US is the most criminal nation in the world, or they are - then yes, you need to reduce the rate of incarceration.

Do you think the US is the most criminal nation in the world, bc?

[Phil]

I'm arguing against the utility of pretending that very human mode is largely restricted to conservatives.

Who here claimed that it was? Yes, I responded to a particular case regarding Catholics and abortion, but I generalized it back out and very specifically used the word "people." If you have trouble understanding what the word "people" means, and believe it somehow means "conservatives," I can probably have my ten-year-old niece draw you a picture or something.

I'm arguing that that very human instinct has very little explanatory force in explaining the differences between conservatives and liberals.

Who here claimed that it does?

So comments like "Consequences are something people generally want other people to suffer; when it comes to themselves, they'll look for the loophole every time." don't really explain why conservatives have different views than liberals.

Who here claimed that it does?

Seriously, you're arguing with phantoms, man. Nobody here -- particularly me -- has claimed any such thing. Or anything even close.

[Jesurgislac]

Slartibartfast: Oh, sure. No one thinks anything is unfair until they're told to think that.

You really think so, Slarti? Because it's not what I said.

And, likewise, nothing is unfair if you're told that it is, before figuring it out for yourself.

You really think so, Slarti? Because it's not what I said.

I think that the notion that it's unfair for people who are inheriting over $2 million from their parents to pay 40% of every dollar above the two million (given the proper exemptions to prevent loss of small family businesses and farms) is something that doesn't actually stand up to close examination. Why is it unfair for people who are about to receive over 2 million dollars to be taxed on the amount they will receive above 2 million dollars?

If this is a spontaneous feeling of "it's unfair!" why is it that so many of the people who claim it is don't have the least idea what the threshold is, how many households pay it, that no small family business or family farm has ever been lost because of estate tax, or that it only applies to the estate above the threshold mark?

They have not looked up how the estate tax works and spontaneously decided that how it works is unfair, because they don't know how the estate tax works: they know what they've been told, which is a bunch of lies and distortions intended to present a picture of an unfair tax.

You may see a difference, but it escapes me. I know only one person who did have a clear idea of how the estate tax works and who did think it was unfair: he claimed (I don't know if it was true) that his estate was going to reach the $2M mark within two years, he had two daughters, and he wanted his daughters to be able to inherit everything from him without paying the government any tax at all. I admit the sincerity and honesty of his feelings. I just don't think much of someone who sincerely and honestly does not want their kids to have to pay their share.

[SamChevre]

They have not looked up how the estate tax works and spontaneously decided that how it works is unfair, because they don't know how the estate tax works: they know what they've been told

In my very limited observation, they know what they've experienced.

Remember--the tax is on the estate, not the recipient, and the threshhold was $600,000 until quite recently. A fair number of people had to deal with figuring out how to pay estate tax on their parents/grandparents estate, which consisted of a small house in the NY suburbs, a car, and a savings account, and was divided up among 10 people. Even if the tax was only $50,000, figuring out how to pay it and how much it was took a massive amount of time and effort and money.

[Sebastian]

Also you should remember that you are talking about the FEDERAL estate tax. Almost every state had an estate tax, and many of them had no or a very low minimum threshold. So the idea that people don't experience estate taxes is wrong.

[Sebastian]

Bold begone!

[Jesurgislac]

Even if the tax was only $50,000, figuring out how to pay it and how much it was took a massive amount of time and effort and money.

Really? The (AFAIK) standard British method (we have an estate tax, though a much lower threshold than yours) is to name a solicitor the joint executor of your will. The solicitor takes a standard fee, works out all the tax stuff, pays off anything owed, and distributes the final checks. The fee isn't massive, and the time/effort is, well, non-existent for the other heirs, and trivial for the family executor - I was the family executor of a relative's will a few years ago, and my share of the work involved making a handful of decisions by phone and signing a handful of letters. It was a responsibility, but it wasn't onerous.

Figuring out what to do with the contents of the house once the main items had been valued was a problem, but would have been the same size of problem regardless of the monetary value of the estate.

(Of course, if a person dies without making a will, that lets their heirs in for shedloads of trouble. Everybody! If you love your family, make a will!)

[Sebastian]

I can't emphasize my agreement with Jesurgislac on this point enough: if you have any money or assets at all, make a will.

[bc]

Of course, bc. How is forcing a 15-year-old girl to have a baby against her will not child abuse? I never said that. Nor did Xeynon. Can't you see that? It's an almost Pavlovian response. All he said was "teenage pregnancy" often brings a response like "X" from the left and there you go arguing "X." Not that either of us were advocating (or not) "X".

Actually, I did throw a bit towards "X." I engaged you, then, but Xeynon did not.

Irrelevant. And thus the disparity.

Do you think the US is the most criminal nation in the world, bc? No. I read you are more likely to be a victim of burglary or theft in G.B. but violent crime in America. Our homicide rate, however, is higher. I'm sure that is part of it.

I know that the "three strikes" laws coupled with tough and inflexible sentencing policies on drugs has lead to the huge increase. I'll have to get you a link, but I read that those two sources were the biggest contributors to our large numbers in prison.

I don't know if that makes me leap to your conclusion that people are being "unjustly imprisoned." If you violate a criminal prohibition, it is just that you are held accountable. "Unjust" would be wrongly convicted, a crime impossible to avoid, etc.

We can debate about whether the consequences of crime are wise or proportionate, but I don't consider that the same thing as "unjust." For example, I think the reform to give fed. district court judges much more discretion on drug sentencing is wise and will lead to lower prison populations.

[russell]

We can debate about whether the consequences of crime are wise or proportionate, but I don't consider that the same thing as "unjust."

Not to take away from your overall point, but I'd say that, as the word is commonly and historically used, there is little difference between 'just' and 'wise or proportionate'.

I'd even argue for 'wise or proportionate' as the dictionary definition for 'just'.

Thanks -

[SamChevre]

The (AFAIK) standard British method (we have an estate tax, though a much lower threshold than yours) is to name a solicitor the joint executor of your will. The solicitor takes a standard fee, works out all the tax stuff, pays off anything owed, and distributes the final checks. The fee isn't massive

Going by memory from a few cases I heard about, a $700k estate would have had taxes of about $40k, and the lawyer fees, filing costs, etc were about $10k.

[Jesurgislac]

bc: I don't know if that makes me leap to your conclusion that people are being "unjustly imprisoned."

I think that any system which works on the policy that after you've been convicted of three crimes you are locked up for life, will inevitably have many people unjustly imprisoned as a result. A crime does not become a crime deserving of life imprisonment merely because it's the third conviction.

Like Bill Clinton, I never inhaled - never learned how - but I've eaten more than enough Alice B. Toklas Brownies to qualify for life imprisonment in the US, should I have been convicted once for each brownie. So have my sister and brother - who do inhale. Presuming that the reason for the high imprisonment of Americans is that your government likes to lock up people who are that level of "criminal", yes: you have people unjustly imprisoned.

I never said that. Nor did Xeynon. Can't you see that?

No.

Are you in fact agreeing with me, bc? You think, as I do, that pregnant teenagers ought to have, as Xeynon put it - "unfettered access to abortion"?

Because if you believe otherwise, bc - if you think that a pregnant teenager's access to abortion ought to be "fettered" - you are arguing that children ought to be forced through pregnancy and childbirth against their will. And that is child abuse.

It's an almost Pavlovian response. All he said was "teenage pregnancy" often brings a response like "X" from the left and there you go arguing "X."

Yes. I do have a Pavlovian response to people who argue for child abuse. Don't you?

[Jesurgislac]

Sebastian: I can't emphasize my agreement with Jesurgislac on this point enough: if you have any money or assets at all, make a will.

Even if you don't - or don't think you do. The problem of who does the post-death admin - and there's always some - and who arranges the funeral, and who disposes of whatever you do own - and everyone, unless they die naked, dies in possession of something - becomes grossly over-complicated if there's no will.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"I think that any system which works on the policy that after you've been convicted of three crimes you are locked up for life, will inevitably have many people unjustly imprisoned as a result."

Three strikes laws vary somewhat, but in almost all cases at least 2 of the 3 strikes have to be for violent crimes. Not just 'crimes'. You won't get locked up for you whole life for forging your aunt's signature to steal $5,000 and defrauding the social security system for her check after she died and sneaking into a closed grocery store to steal cigars.

[Jesurgislac]

Sebastian; but in almost all cases at least 2 of the 3 strikes have to be for violent crimes. Not just 'crimes'.

And is there the same racial disparity that exists for capital punishment for the definition of a "violent crime"?

[magistra]

Just to stir up the 'false consciousness' and abortion debate even more, how many people in the US do really think that 'abortion is murder'? In the sense that they would want the same penalty for a woman who had an abortion (*not* the doctor who performed it) as if she had committed the premeditated killing of a child/adult? (Presumably for the latter act, someone would get at least life imprisonment, if not the death penalty).

I suspect that even in the US there isn't much of a constituency for actively executing women who have abortions (as opposed to a lack of concern about the dangers of illegal abortions), which suggests that here again we have false consciousness: people react positively to a slogan which is meaningless if taken literally.

[Sebastian]

I suspect that the number of people who think that ALL abortion is murder is fairly slow.

But murder isn't the only thing that people think is worth outlawing, either.

Protecting fetal chances at life might be important even in non-murder considerations at some point before killing the fetus becomes murder.

In that vein, I believe that an abortion of a viable fetus is murder if the lack of abortion wasn't seriously threatening the mother's health. And I would have no trouble putting a doctor and the woman behind bars for murder in such a case. (Jesurgislac claims there are never and would never be such cases, which then makes it all easy--we'll never be forced to worry about it).

[Jesurgislac]

In that vein, I believe that an abortion of a viable fetus is murder if the lack of abortion wasn't seriously threatening the mother's health.

Do you have both kidneys, all of the liver you were born with, and are you a regular blood donor, Sebastian? If not, how many murders do you suppose you've committed in denying another human being the chance of life by making use of a part of your body?

After all, while pregnancy can permanently damage a woman's body, hardly anyone is harmed in any way by removing a pint of blood, and people die from blood loss. Do you advocate that the law should be changed to require all healthy adults to provide a pint of blood on demand?

We've been through this before, of course, but it always gets me how willing some men are to be generous with other people's bodies - while ringfencing off from unwilling use any organ they themselves would be at risk of being forced to provide for someone else's use.

[Sebastian]

I gave blood plenty before it was pointed out that gay men in the US are not permitted to give blood. I've done it at least as many times as your average woman is likely to be pregnant.

And the differences in analogy are ones we have been over repeatedly.

"We've been through this before, of course, but it always gets me how willing some men are to be generous with other people's bodies - while ringfencing off from unwilling use any organ they themselves would be at risk of being forced to provide for someone else's use."

Fun rhetoric. And to think we just discussed how progressives are so generous with other people's stuff all the time. And the life of a child isn't even on the line in those cases. Hmm.

;)

[Jesurgislac]

I gave blood plenty before it was pointed out that gay men in the US are not permitted to give blood.

Gave it. So, no one forced you to do so? No one fettered you to a table and made you provide a pint of blood? Do you think that would be the right thing to do?

And the differences in analogy are ones we have been over repeatedly.

Yes - as above. Being forced to provide a pint of blood even four times a year won't harm any healthy adult. Being forced through pregnancy and childbirth will harm women. About 65 000 women die each year because of pro-lifers.

And to think we just discussed how progressives are so generous with other people's stuff all the time.

Yes; while conservatives are generous with other people's lives. 65 000 women a year die for the conservative ideal that no woman should be allowed to decide for herself how many children to have and when to have them.

[bc]

but it always gets me how willing some men are to be generous with other people's bodies

You know, that's what makes it so hard to debate the issue, because although it may affect my daughters and my wife and other women close to me in a physical way, it doesn't affect my body. That, however, doesn't mean that the moral question changes. So at the same time it is unfair to claim that arguments by men lack some sort of moral weight simply because they are from men.

BTW, I just donated blood a week ago and I'm registered on the bone marrow registry. That's about as good as I can do.

Are you in fact agreeing with me, bc?

I don't agree with your absolutism on the issue. The whole abortion issue is difficult specifically because you are dealing with someone else's body and an unborn life. I don't run away from the complications-I embrace them (at least I think I do). I think morally we should care very much about how we come into this world and how we leave.

So, here is what I think: I should be informed as a parent if my daughter is thinking of having an abortion. I think I should still have the power of moral persuasiveness, but I do not think I can or should force my daughter to carry a baby to term. This assumes "voluntary" pregnancy (no statutory rape, etc.) and my daughter is of sufficient age and reasoning (15 was the hypo here). Even then, it's difficult.

I think "unfettered access to abortion" interpreted as no parental notification is wrong. Carrying to term is an option. One that should not be forced, yes. But your phrase seems to imply the second option would not be given a fair shake.

A pregnant 15 year old in our society is a tragedy. We have to make due best we can. Having done several adoptions as an attorney, I believe carrying to term and adopting the child is an alternative a girl should have and should be presented to her fairly.

And, as you said in your previous post, it is a different thing once a girl is pregnant. We should be focusing on before that. I'm am not at all sold that public education is the answer. And contraceptive-only education is not the answer.

[Jesurgislac]

I don't agree with your absolutism on the issue.

You think teenage girls ought sometimes to be forced through pregnancy and childbirth against their will?

I should be informed as a parent if my daughter is thinking of having an abortion.

Well, assuming that your daughter trusts you and respects you, you will be informed. By your daughter.

A parent who needs the government to force a child's confidence is a parent who doesn't deserve to have their child's confidence. So I oppose all legislation that requires an underage girl to tell her parents before she can have an abortion: if her parents have earned her confidence, she'll tell them anyway - if they haven't, they don't deserve to have the government force their daughter's confidence from her.

A pregnant 15 year old in our society is a tragedy. We have to make due best we can. Having done several adoptions as an attorney, I believe carrying to term and adopting the child is an alternative a girl should have and should be presented to her fairly.

Certainly the girl should be told that if she carries the pregnancy to term, it could permanently damage her health and her chances of having more children: and that if she gives birth and gives up the baby to strangers, possibly never to see her child again and certainly not for at least 18 years, she will certainly regret doing so for the rest of her life. That would be fair.

What would be unfair would be to present those options to her as a duty she owes to the fertilised egg.

[Turbulence]

You know, that's what makes it so hard to debate the issue, because although it may affect my daughters and my wife and other women close to me in a physical way, it doesn't affect my body. That, however, doesn't mean that the moral question changes. So at the same time it is unfair to claim that arguments by men lack some sort of moral weight simply because they are from men.

You know, there's no reason whatsoever that embodiment need complicate this analysis. All we have to do is decide that fetuses at N months of gestation are people, which means that abortion after N months is murder. The law need not, and should not, specify abortion at all. I would happily support such a law because it gets us to the real core of the debate.

So, bc, are you prepared to support a legal regime where women who get abortions must be charged with homicide and punished in exactly the same manner as the state would punish a woman who murdered a five year old child? If not, could you please explain why?

[Sebastian]

"65 000 women a year die for the conservative ideal that no woman should be allowed to decide for herself how many children to have and when to have them."

I'm against late term abortion, not contraception. I don't have a problem with the idea that every woman should be allowed to decide for herself how many children she would like to have and when to have.

So when you want to talk about abortion with me instead of this hypothetical person that you apparently have very strong feelings about, I'll be happy to engage you.

[Jesurgislac]

Sebastian: I don't have a problem with the idea that every woman should be allowed to decide for herself how many children she would like to have and when to have.

So you do support a woman's right to choose abortion?

There's this little gap, you see, between "contraception" - which the pro-life movement opposes - and "late-term abortion" - which the pro-life movement encourages as far as possible by campaigning to delay access to abortion.

That gap is where the vast majority of abortions take place: the first trimester. You have given literally no indication in the past, including on this thread, that you do in fact support free and and unquestioned access to abortion in the first trimester, no delays, no arguments, no forcing a woman to wait while she finds the money to pay for it or gets transport back to the US from the overseas military base where she's stationed - all tactics of the pro-life movement.

So when you want to talk about abortion with me instead of this hypothetical person that you apparently have very strong feelings about, I'll be happy to engage you.

Well, are you pro-choice for the first trimester? And do you oppose the pro-life movement in its tactics to discourage contraception and encourage late abortions?

[bc]

A parent who needs the government to force a child's confidence is a parent who doesn't deserve to have their child's confidence.

Do you have children? Would you really not want to have the opportunity to help your child work through such a difficult situation? If you have children, do you have some that are more difficult to parent than others? I have no doubt that most of my daughters would inform me no matter what. However, there is one that is different than the rest. She is frankly hard to parent. And she is the one that needs my input most of all (for the same reason she is difficult to parent). Under your regime, she might never get that chance. And that would be a shame. We're not talking about abusive parent situations. I am comfortable with a judge making that decision in cases of allegations of abuse.

So, bc, are you prepared to support a legal regime where women who get abortions must be charged with homicide and punished in exactly the same manner as the state would punish a woman who murdered a five year old child?

I don't get how this question follows from my "embodiment" point.

And I'm pretty sure criminal prohibitions on women are not the answer. Pregnancy is hard enough when the child is wanted! Criminal prohibitions on providers is probably the best (but far from perfect) solution in such situations (although it brings the adverse health consequences Jes often notes and I recognize).

[Jesurgislac]

bc: Do you have children? Would you really not want to have the opportunity to help your child work through such a difficult situation?

If I had a daughter, and she got pregnant at 15 and had an abortion and never told me, I'd be very hurt - because it would mean my daughter didn't trust me to support her. But that would be my fault, not my daughter's.

If you have children, do you have some that are more difficult to parent than others? I have no doubt that most of my daughters would inform me no matter what. However, there is one that is different than the rest. She is frankly hard to parent. And she is the one that needs my input most of all (for the same reason she is difficult to parent). Under your regime, she might never get that chance.

If you hadn't earned her confidence, you wouldn't get it. If you want the government to force your child's confidence because she doesn't trust you enough to tell you voluntarily, she's right not to trust you.

We're not talking about abusive parent situations.

We're talking about parents whose children don't trust them.

There was a real-life incident like this in the UK a couple of years ago: a girl who got pregnant, and - via the school nurse - got an abortion, without her parents being informed - as is only right, parents can't be told in the UK except by the girl herself. A bit later, the girl told her younger sister, and a bit later than that, the younger sister let it out to their parents.

The mother was furious and tried to sue the school. Lost the case, of course, but managed to get her story splashed all over the papers. Turns out the mother was furious because she'd have wanted her daughter to have the baby, not have an abortion, so the daughter showed excellent judgement in not telling her parents.

[Slartibartfast]

everyone, unless they die naked, dies in possession of something - becomes grossly over-complicated if there's no will

Case in point: my wife's uncle died last week, having ostensibly provided for his funeral as well as other sundry details. But, no will (and therefore, no executor). And therefore, no provision for paying the various fees that the mortuary neglected to mention to him when it sold him the funeral, such as that it costs $260 just to pick him up, plus mileage.

And there's always more. My wife's away now, taking a couple of days to take care of the remains of the life of a man who died with practically nothing to his name. To top it off, there's a lawsuit against a woman who he quit-claimed his house to (and who summarily evicted him), status unknown and unknowable until the attorney in question can find a moment to spare to address the surviving family.

So: yes, please, please do take some time to make your going-out a bit more orderly than your coming-in.

Do you have both kidneys, all of the liver you were born with, and are you a regular blood donor, Sebastian? If not, how many murders do you suppose you've committed in denying another human being the chance of life by making use of a part of your body?

Apropos of practically nothing at all, I'm having a The Thing flashback.

[Phil]

I gave blood plenty before it was pointed out that gay men in the US are not permitted to give blood.

For the record, you and other gay men are still permitted to give blood to be used for research purposes. You only cannot donate blood for transfusion. (The same is true of all other people who are ineligible to donate for one of the other reasons on the FDA's no-no list.)

It may not seem as immediately generous or charitable, but blood research is and continues to be crucially important, so don't overlook the possibility.

[bc]

If you want the government to force your child's confidence

I want the government to let me be a parent.

There was a real-life incident like this in the UK a couple of years ago: a girl who got pregnant, and - via the school nurse - got an abortion,...

I think you are talking of the case . Your law allows children under the age of 16 to get an abortion without parental notification. I think that is absurd.

Sure, the court said that a child of insufficient maturity would be another matter. Uh, I say any kid under 16 probably could use some parental advice. Who better to know their maturity.

It sounds like you think carrying a child to term is per se a bad thing. Sure there are health risks. Yes, it may ruin the modeling career. A parent can and should help make those decisions.

[Turbulence]

I'm pretty sure criminal prohibitions on women are not the answer. Pregnancy is hard enough when the child is wanted!

Why are they not the answer? Should pregnant women face no legal sanction if they murder an adult? What if they murder a 5 year old child? I'm guessing that you're not willing to commit to a legal regime where pregnant women can kill anyone they want with no more than a slap on the wrist. Am I right?

So, if pregnant women should obey the law and if a fetus is past the age we consider human, then she has committed homicide. Paying someone else to do the deed doesn't change her legal responsibility. If you pay a hit man to murder your spouse, you're still going to prison. The hit man will as well, but that has nothing to do with your personal guilt.

The thing that bothers me in these abortion discussions is this bizarre refusal to accept responsibility for your beliefs. If you believe that aborting a 5 month old fetus is murder, then that belief has consequences, namely that women who abort 5 month old fetuses must go to prison for a very long time. If you can't accept those consequences, then you need to reevaluate your beliefs.

In my experience, most people I've spoken with think abortion is morally icky, and that may lead them to the conclusion that abortion is murder. But I've met very very few people who are willing to tolerate homicide convictions of women who get abortions. Which suggests they don't really believe abortion is murder.

[Hartmut]

My position on that would be that, if there is a parental notification law, the pregnant girl should be able to appeal to a neutral authority for a waiver. I can see pretty good reasons for a girl to not inform her parents under certain circumstances and that should not be ignored (even not counting extreme cases like the threat of "honor killings" for the moment).

[Turbulence]

However, there is one that is different than the rest. She is frankly hard to parent. And she is the one that needs my input most of all (for the same reason she is difficult to parent).

If you are so concerned about this problem, then you clearly need to be administrating monthly pregnancy tests to your daughter. There are some parents to administer regular drug tests to their children; this seems no different. You have a problem with your daughter: that problem does not require state intervention at all. I do not understand why the state should risk harming the most vulnerable teen girls simply to compensate for your unwillingness to do your job as a parent.

I am comfortable with a judge making that decision in cases of allegations of abuse.

In practice, this does not work. I've seen at least one report where researchers claimed to be a 16 year old pregnant girls attempting to get an notification bypass because their parents where abusive. In many cases, the courts simply refused to even hear their case: they were told that no bypass would be permitted, period.

You seem to assume that we have a choice between having a system where abused teenagers can bypass parental notifications and having a system where no notification is required. That's not actually the choice at hand though. We as a society are not willing to ensure access; if we were serious about it, there would be random tests and severe financial penalties, but we're not serious about it and that's not going to change in the future. The choice we face is one where essentially all girls, including those who have been abused by their parents, must notify their parents OR one where no one need notify their parents.

If you'd like a cite, let me know and I'll dig it up for you later tonight.

[Hartmut]

I have a cruel and unusual idea: Let anyone that publicly claims that abortion=always murder sign a sworn statement on that and make that legally binding for any court dealing with that person. If that person is caught involved in abortions without offcially/publicly renouncing that statement before, let them be charged with murder (or related charges).*

*just a variation on the old: capital punishment only for those publicly in favor of it.

[Hartmut]

Although Turb's second part was not directly aimed at me, I would like to emphasize that I put some big "ifs" into my proposal.
1. If there is a parental notification law...
2. (If) there is a neutral authority...
Absent those I am for an age-related distinction (e.g. a 12 year old could not "just get an abortion" while a 16 year old could. I would not consider myself competent to draw the line though).

[Jesurgislac]

I want the government to let me be a parent.

How is the government making it your responsibility to be a parent that your daughter trusts, somehow "not letting you be a parent"? It's not the government's fault in this scenario if your daughter doesn't trust you.

Your law allows children under the age of 16 to get an abortion without parental notification. I think that is absurd.

I think it's worse than absurd to have teenage girls dying because the parental notification laws in their state mean they have to get an unsafe illegal abortion instead of a safe legal one: or to have teenage girls having to delay the abortion they need by applying to court to let the doctor perform the abortion without telling their parents. That's the price of parental notification laws: dead teenage girls or delayed abortions.

Both scenarios are avoided by requiring doctors and nurses to follow stringent medical ethics: the patient's right to confidentiality is paramount. And good parents will have the confidence of their children anyway.

Sure, the court said that a child of insufficient maturity would be another matter. Uh, I say any kid under 16 probably could use some parental advice. Who better to know their maturity.

If the girl needs parental advice, she knows where to go for it. It's a parent's responsibility to be the kind of person their daughter will trust absolutely to go to for advice and support in any situation. If a parent hasn't managed to be that kind of person, you want the government to step in and force the girl to talk?

(I mean, it won't work - practically, if the girl knows she has the option of getting a court order to guard her confidentiality, she can do that, though it will delay her getting her abortion: also practically, if the girl doesn't know about that, she may get an illegal abortion, which is absurd in a country where safe legal abortion ought to be available: and finally, it's entirely possible that a girl who can't trust her parents, hasn't got the confidence to go to court or to find an illegal abortionist, may have the baby - and become one of the infanticide statistics. One thing a government cannot do successfully is force a child to have confidence in a parent the child doesn't trust. Why would you thin this would work?)

It sounds like you think carrying a child to term is per se a bad thing. Sure there are health risks. Yes, it may ruin the modeling career. A parent can and should help make those decisions.

Then a parent needs to make themselves into the kind of person a child will trust. This really can't be repeated too often: I am bewildered by your argument that if a parent's fallen down on the job of being a trusted, reliable person in the child's life, it's the government's job to force the child to behave as if the parent was trustworthy and reliable. I thought conservatives were supposed to oppose government interference?

[Turbulence]

I have a cruel and unusual idea: Let anyone that publicly claims that abortion=always murder sign a sworn statement on that and make that legally binding for any court dealing with that person.

This is a cute idea, but I think it would make awful policy. A legal regime where owning slaves was permissible for people that swore they would accept being enslaved if circumstances changed would still be violently wrong. I suspect the anti-abortion forces would persuasively argue that if abortion is murder, it should be punished as murder. We live under one law and attempts to split principles in this manner don't seem just to me.

[Jesurgislac]

It sounds like you think carrying a child to term is per se a bad thing.

For a 15-year-old girl? Sure.

One: A 15-year-old girl is still growing and developing. She needs to eat enough - and eat sensibly - to maintain and build her body. If she's going through nine months of pregnancy, she'll need to eat for two - and eat sensibly for two: she'll need to be able to cope with the dramatic and permanent changes of pregnancy. It's simply medically a bad idea for a girl that age to be pregnant and give birth: her body isn't physically ready, she'll need to follow a stricter physical regimen than adult, fully-grown women would. Any pregnant teenager ought to be strongly advised to have an abortion just on health reasons.

Two: If a 15-year-old girl is pregnant, this was statutory rape. Now there are circumstances where this is more "statutory" - where a girl was having a relationship with a boy her age - but any rape victim, and particularly a child, ought to be supported and enabled to have an abortion if pregnant as a result of rape.

Three: a 15-year-old girl - or even a 16-year-old - cannot support a child. She can't earn enough: under 16 she can't even apply independently for state benefits: she should be getting her own education, and bringing up a child is going to interfere with that. Unless there's a coherent. well-supported plan for how the young mother is going to continue in full-time education, graduate, and how she and the child are going to be economically and otherwise supported until the young mother is able to work and earn for them both, it's shamefully irresponsible to have the baby.

Four: if the girl has the baby and gives the baby up for adoption, this is a wrenching emotional blow that the girl will regret for the rest of her life. She will not see her child for longer than she herself has been alive - the child won't know the biological mother's name till the child is three years older than the girl was when the child was conceived. This is an appalling thing to advise a 15-year-old to do, because while a 15-year-old may have the physical discipline to deal with being pregnant, and the intellectual discipline to deal with being a mother and finishing high school, and the emotional maturity to deal with being a parent, no 15-year-old has the emotional maturity to suffer without trauma having her baby taken away from her and given to strangers, or the ability to understand at a period in her pregnancy when "the baby" is still an abstraction, that by the time she gives birth, the baby will be a real person: that this is a decision that she will regret painfully for the rest of her life.

Now, with all that, I am pro-choice. If I were responsible for a 15-year-old girl who told me she was pregnant and didn't want an abortion, I would make her go through all the consequences of that decision in advance - as detailed above. I would not - and in UK law I could not - require her to have an abortion if that was her decision not to. Her body, her choice. But yes - at that age, having a baby would be as intrinsically unsensible and stupidly damaging as taking up smoking.

Of course, plenty of kids do that, too.

[Jesurgislac]

Hartmut: Absent those I am for an age-related distinction (e.g. a 12 year old could not "just get an abortion" while a 16 year old could

Oh boy. Hartmut, a pregnant 12-year-old needs to "just get an abortion" - and no waiting around for "parental notification", any more than a doctor ought to wait around to notify the parent that they want to remove a burst appendix. For a 12-year-old girl, everything I said about pregnancy for 15-year-olds applies cubed.

[bc]

The thing that bothers me in these abortion discussions is this bizarre refusal to accept responsibility for your beliefs.

Never really intended to get into this discussion in the first place. But let me try to be clear on a position that for me is not perfectly clear in my own head. So, for starters, quit trying to get me to be perfectly consistent when by admission I am not. And I find your comment about not taking responsibility incomprehensible and somewhat offensive.

First, I think human life is sacred. Any decision regarding human life needs to be made with this in mind. Second, pregnancy is a situation unto itself. All the analogies regarding killing a child outside the womb are by their very nature not applicable on all fours. And I don't pretend to know when life begins. To me, the morning after pill is significantly different than late term abortion which is in turn significantly different than murder of another (but the difference between the last two is nowhere near as great).

Add to this the fact that pregnancy affects a woman physically, emotionally and psychologically. Life and health of the mother have to be a concern. Pregnancy really burdens a woman. This, I know. Maybe I see pregnancy as simply a blanket defense to murder (diminished capacity?).

To me, viability looms large. I don't see a whole lot of difference between aborting at the end of the pregnancy and infanticide where the baby is killed just after birth.

All of this assumes a pregnancy not the result of rape or an abortion not required to protect the life and health of the mother.

And I'm just going stream of consciousness here. Point is, I don't think I have to be in favor of criminalizing abortion to "take responsibility" for my beliefs.

Which suggests they don't really believe abortion is murder.

I didn't say it was. I do think voluntary abortion where not the result of rape, incest, etc. and where not seriously risking the life and the health of the mother is a truly unfortunate act.

I do not understand why the state should risk harming the most vulnerable teen girls simply to compensate for your unwillingness to do your job as a parent.

Wow. I feel like packing it up and going home. I'm not sure why you would assume that I am somehow unwilling to do my job as a parent. if I knew you better I guess I would be hurt. That's really a low blow.

You assume that because a child won't turn to a parent that automatically means that a parent is falling down on the job. I have enough guilt trying to parent this child. I don't need you piling on. You must not know anyone with a particularly difficult child. I won't bore you with diagnosis or anything. It's all my fault, according to you.

But going with that thought, what if your daughter was of diminished mental capacity? And as a result didn't exactly trust her parents (because they make her do things that are hard and she doesn't see that they are good for her, like succeeding in school?). We should just let the government decide for her?

I believe that parents have a fundamental right to be involved in their children's lives and that children are not the best determiners of what is good for them. Teen pregnancy represents a unique challenge because it so affects the child. That much we agree on. But if you're going to disparage me as a parent, I'm done with this conversation.

Later.

[Jesurgislac]

I'm not sure why you would assume that I am somehow unwilling to do my job as a parent.

Oh dear. I was honestly trying to avoid personalizing this in the negative half. I apologize for the implication that you are, or might be, a bad parent: I have no idea what kind of parent you might be, but being a parent is a tough enough job that I think anyone deserves the benefit of the doubt. So sorry for that.

Let me return to the impersonal version.

A parent who has been unable to gain their child's confidence so that the child is willing to go to the parent and say "I'm pregnant, and I want an abortion", should not expect the government to step in on the parent's behalf and try to force the child to behave as if the parent had gained their child's confidence. That's what parental notification legislation is for: parents who know or who are afraid that their child won't turn to them, and who want the government to interfere on their behalf.

[Jesurgislac]

But going with that thought, what if your daughter was of diminished mental capacity? And as a result didn't exactly trust her parents (because they make her do things that are hard and she doesn't see that they are good for her, like succeeding in school?). We should just let the government decide for her?

What? No. Nowhere in this thread have I made the argument that the government should get to decide whether or not a person gets to have an abortion.

In the case of a person of diminished mental capacity, they need more protection of their rights, not less.

A person of diminished mental capacity needs an independent advocate to establish in a one-to-one what that the person actually wants, and to advocate that person's position. If the person wants their advocate to be one or both of their parents, fine: if they prefer a different advocate, then no way should the government step in and force this person to accept their parents as their advocates if that's not what this person wants.

Why would you want the government to force a person of diminished mental capacity to accept an advocate that this person does not want or does not trust?

[Jesurgislac]

bc: I believe that parents have a fundamental right to be involved in their children's lives and that children are not the best determiners of what is good for them.

Well, yeah.

But: we seem to be arguing on opposite sides of the fence, here. Physiologically and mentally, pregnancy and childbirth are not good for a child. A child who thinks they want that is a child wanting something that, really, is not good for them.

My ethical problem would be with a girl who was pregnant and who was firm that she didn't want an abortion - and the younger she was, the worse my ethical problem would be, because the more she would need to have an abortion, and the sooner the better. If she wants a baby, she wants something that isn't good for her, but it's against my principles to use parental authority to force her.

Your ethical problem seems to be with a pregnant teenager who does want an abortion, because - in theory at least, I'm guessing you don't know what you'd do in practice - you think she shouldn't. There are real instances of parents trying to push their own pro-life views on to their children: and others where the girl feared (realistically or not) that their parents would push their pro-life views.

Most usually, when parents want one thing for their child and the child wants another, the parent is the one who's right. But a parent who wants a young girl to go through pregnancy and childbirth and give up the baby to adoption, is a parent who wants something bad - a whole conglomeration of bad - for their child. A parent who won't at least try to argue a teenage child into having an abortion, is a parent who is not doing the best for their child.

And as noted upthread: it's an all-or-nothing, practically. If you try to mess around with exceptions, you end up in a mess. Better to presume that good family relationships will ensure children do tell their parents, and maintain medical confidentiality otherwise.

Again, I apologize for that unfortunate use of "you" upthread: I am trying to keep my views of how parents should behave towards children impersonal rather than critical of you personally, and that slip was regrettable and is regretted.

[Turbulence]

I do not understand why the state should risk harming the most vulnerable teen girls simply to compensate for your unwillingness to do your job as a parent.

Wow. I feel like packing it up and going home. I'm not sure why you would assume that I am somehow unwilling to do my job as a parent. if I knew you better I guess I would be hurt. That's really a low blow.

My sincerest apologies bc. I did not mean to imply that you are, in any way, a bad parent.

The point I was trying to get at was this: it is important to you that your daughter not have an abortion without your knowledge, correct? So, who should bear the burden of ensuring that your preference in that matter is obeyed: the parent or the state?

I don't see why the state should have to bother. If it is very important to you that your daughter not have sex or not get an abortion, then you really should be testing her regularly. Even with state notification, teenagers can still get abortions by buying black market mifeprestone. Every teenager in this country can purchase a wealth of black market pharmaceuticals, from ritalin to ecstasy. So, if avoiding pregnancy and abortion is a serious concern, trusting the state is simply not enough.

[Turbulence]

First, I think human life is sacred. Any decision regarding human life needs to be made with this in mind.

bc, you're an attorney, right? Can you tell me what those two sentences mean? Because, in all honesty, I haven't a clue. I suspect that most people would agree with those sentences, but I also suspect that most people would not agree on the meaning of those sentences.

Consider the phrase "human life": do bits of tissue from my body count as human life? Probably not. So what is the criteria for something to be "human life"? I think one answer might be brain activity in the neocortex, but I don't think that there exists a social consensus on this definition or any other for that matter.

I also don't know what "sacred" means here. If sacred means "protected by law" then the statement is meaningless: laws protect everything in some circumstance. If instead sacred means holy or blessed, I'm really confused. Religions decide what is holy. My religion and yours won't likely agree and I don't think the state should choose between the two of them. I'm fairly certain the state isn't permitted to establish its own religion or give special privileges to mine.

In general, human life is not sacred. It is quite profane. I can look up the cost of a human life in an insurance table.

[bc]

Jes and Turbulence:

Thanks for the apologies. I'm sure I read too much into the parenting thing and it's a source of real frustration (with respect to the one daughter) for me and my wife right now. It's a good thing-it makes us better people to try and work through it. And if we didn't have her we would think we were God's gift to parenting (our other kids are so easy to parent).

But my final comments:

This is really complicated no matter what one's views. I don't think abortion would never be justified. And I agree that carrying to term for a child is generally a bad thing and gets progressively worse the younger the child. That's why I'm really opposed to teen pregnancy (as are we all). Where we differ is how bad the alternative is. And Turbulence's discussion of what constitutes "human life" highlights how different the results are when we disagree about what human life really is.

And Turbulence, while I don't think my moral opposition to abortion is entirely religious, my religion alone would give me that opinion. Doesn't mean it gives me all the answers, though. And when I stated human life is sacred, I'm speaking from my own moral and religious viewpoint. Not going to define those terms!

And Jes, even with my moral opposition to abortion I see my role not as imposing my views. I feel very strongly that my children choose do do what is right based on their own moral convictions. They already know what mine are. If it were a situation where abortion were justified in my view, it would be helping my child make a terrible decision (either way) and being there to support them. If it were not justified, it would be making sure my child took everything into consideration and supporting them as well. That's it. No offense, but I doubt Planned Parenthood is going to do all that well taking my place.

I see that you really want the decision to be solely the child's. I am not all that far off from that point of view. I think the child, so far as capable, should make the decision but only after parental input. To mandate otherwise is a serious invasion of parental rights.

[Jesurgislac]

Where we differ is how bad the alternative is.

We do. There is absolutely nothing bad about abortion where carried out for the health and wellbeing of the pregnant woman, and more strongly so for a pregnant child. A parent has a responsibility towards their child's health and wellbeing. If it appears the parent may disregard that responsibility in favor of a moral principle that will damage the child's health, the child has every right to turn to someone else for help in getting the health care they need.

The notion that it is "moral" to ask a child to sacrifice their own health and wellbeing, and potentially their life, to labor for nine months to create another child, is just ... backwards. It's immoral to even suggest to a child she should do this.

To mandate otherwise is a serious invasion of parental rights.

You are still maintaining, then, that it's the government's responsibility to force a child into behaving as if she trusts her parents, not the parents' responsibility to be parents that the child will trust? That seems to me to be a major invasion of parental rights - an acknowledgement that some parents are simply unfit and the government needs to do their job for them.

After all, as Turbulence noted, any parent has the right to give their child an uninvasive pregnancy test every month - buy the kit, insist the child provides the urine sample, check - and a parent who feels they have the right to know if their child is pregnant or not and is sure their child won't tell them, ought not to demand government intervention in the family.

[Hartmut]

Jes, bad choice of words on my side. I did not want to imply that a 12 year old should not have an abortion but that, at that age, she would not be the person to make an informed decision on that (while I would think a 16 year old could)*. Would you allow a 12 year old to sell a kidney just on her say-so (I am not talking about donating it to save the life of her twin sister)? That is, I think of the 12-vs-16 not basically as a medical (or moral) problem but one of maturity**.

Turb, my cruel and unusual idea was to be taken with a grain of salt. Apart from everything else it would run afoul of the principle of equal law for everybody. Although making bigotry a punishable offense has its superficial appeal, the practical consequences would likely be much worse.
For the same reason I can entertain fantasies of e.g. sending Yoo, Bybee and Gonzo to hell on a waterboard while not thinking that would be a sound (or wise) legal solution.

*If there were parents that would insist that even a (=their) 12 year old should not abort on principle, I'd see that as evidence that somebody is not really up to the job.
**This still leaves open the question of who could be trusted with making the decision for someone (yet) lacking the maturity. Hint:not the local chapter of Whackos'R'Us, subgroup religious hypocrites.

[Gary Farber]

"And when I stated human life is sacred, I'm speaking from my own moral and religious viewpoint. Not going to define those terms!"

I don't quite follow this. You seem to imply that somehow the second sentence follows inevitably from the first: that because it's your moral and religious viewpoint, your terms are undefinable.

If that's not your meaning, I don't follow what connection you're making from the first sentence to the second. If it is your meaning, I don't understand how it follows. Why would something be undefinable because it's part of your moral and religious viewpoint?

Are you saying that your moral and religious views aren't susceptible to rational description? Or what?

I have a moral view, but it doesn't prevent me from defining my terms, or explaining it rationally. Do you find doing so problematic, as a rule, or do I misunderstand your meaning, here?

[Sebastian]

"It may not seem as immediately generous or charitable, but blood research is and continues to be crucially important, so don't overlook the possibility."

Do you have to donate in special places for this? Where?

The thing that bothers me in these abortion discussions is this bizarre refusal to accept responsibility for your beliefs. If you believe that aborting a 5 month old fetus is murder, then that belief has consequences, namely that women who abort 5 month old fetuses must go to prison for a very long time. If you can't accept those consequences, then you need to reevaluate your beliefs.

In my experience, most people I've spoken with think abortion is morally icky, and that may lead them to the conclusion that abortion is murder. But I've met very very few people who are willing to tolerate homicide convictions of women who get abortions. Which suggests they don't really believe abortion is murder.

First, your argument doesn't prove much. I'm aware of at least a few laws that prohibit things that aren't murder. They may even be a majority of laws (I don't have a study on it available).

Second, I don't have any problem with the idea that aborting a viable fetus when it isn't necessary to save the woman from serious physical harm is murder. The difference between a viable fetus and a viable preemie is location. The only reason to allow abortions at all past viability is in self-defense if the fetus is threatening the life of the mother. If you abort a viable fetus that isn't seriously threatening your health you are as morally culpable as if you suffocated your preemie because you saw that it was going to be a lot of work. At that stage of the pregnancy an abortion requires a delivery, I don't see any reason why you should have a delivery and get to choose that the delivery is of a dead baby rather than a live one if it isn't threatening your health.

As I have no problem with charging the woman who suffocates her preemie, I similarly have no problem charging one who aborts a viable fetus. Do you? On what basis?

[Turbulence]

I'm aware of at least a few laws that prohibit things that aren't murder. They may even be a majority of laws (I don't have a study on it available).

Oh, I agree. But if an abortion is not murder, what is the principled basis for outlawing abortion? I can understand the principled basis for outlawing different forms of murder very easily, but if an abortion isn't a murder, then none of those principles apply. So you need to make another argument. I'd like to see that.

Second, I don't have any problem with the idea that aborting a viable fetus when it isn't necessary to save the woman from serious physical harm is murder.

That's nice, but that's not really the issue is it? I mean, isn't that belief exactly the holding of Roe? I thought you sought more restrictions than Roe permitted...was I mistaken? I thought you approvingly cited the belief that 2/3s of Americans want to ban second and third trimester abortions...so why are you talking about post viability abortions for non-maternal-health reasons? The law and social consensus are already well aligned there, right?

The difference between a viable fetus and a viable preemie is location.

I believe the commenter Dianne has demonstrated that this is not true, but I won't recapitulate her points here.

As I have no problem with charging the woman who suffocates her preemie, I similarly have no problem charging one who aborts a viable fetus. Do you? On what basis?

I don't.

Again, I'd like to see your thoughts regarding whether second trimester abortion is murder.

[Sebastian]

"Oh, I agree. But if an abortion is not murder, what is the principled basis for outlawing abortion?"

What do you mean? Is there a principled basis for outlawing tax evasion? That isn't murder. Is there a principled basis for outlawing child abuse? That isn't murder. Is there a principled basis for outlawing animal torture? That isn't murder.

A great majority of laws aren't murder, and yet principled cases can be made regarding them nonetheless.

And you make those cases in the legislature as opposed to pretending that the Constitution dictates the answer.

My case for pre-viability 2nd trimester abortion restrictions would be along the lines that the fetus isn't enough of a person to calling killing it murder at that point, but that it has at least the moral worth of a dog. We have rules against torturing or killing dogs that don't have punishments that are the same as if you were torturing and killing a person. It is a sliding scale, 1st trimester you get to treat it is disposable tissue if you want, late 2nd trimester pre-viability you have to treat it more seriously, post-viability were are at the murder stage. (And I don't fully buy into the trimester stages as the be-all and end-all anyway developmental changes happen at times other than the trimester points).

The difference between a viable fetus and a viable preemie is location.

I believe the commenter Dianne has demonstrated that this is not true, but I won't recapitulate her points here.

Let me be super-clear: the difference between KILLING a viable fetus and KILLING a viable preemie is location.

Dianne has not said anything to call that into question. 'Viable' means that (perhaps with medical help) the baby can survive outside the womb. It doesn't have to be identical in every way to the fetus inside the womb--it can survive. That is what 'viable' means when we talk about it in the abortion context. The fact that ripping the fetus from the womb is traumatizing to the fetus and also causes changes to the fetus such that it has to medically treated differently in order for it to live has nothing to do with the fact that it is viable and with medical support can live.

"I don't."

To be clear, you don't have a problem charging a woman who aborts a viable fetus with murder? I just want to be sure I'm understanding you.

[Jesurgislac]

Sebastian, this is the very first time you've admitted in public that you are pro-choice for at least the first trimester, so let me be the first to congratulate you on being on the side of the angels, however briefly. Tell me, why have we never seen you fulminating against the pro-life attempts to restrict and delay abortion into the second trimester, if you're for unfettered access in the first trimester?

Moving on, of course I disagree that once past the first trimester a woman - or a child - can be forced to labor for six months to produce a baby, based on a legislature's judgement of what is and is not a "viable fetus".

Presuming that the pro-life movement has been triumphantly overcome, and that everyone in the US has free access to contraception and fast access to abortion on demand in the first trimester, this still leaves:

1. Individuals - mostly children - and others who were simply unaware that they were pregnant or who were trapped by circumstances into being unable to access an abortion until the second trimester. The compassionate Irish government wanted to force a 14-year-old girl, pregnant from repeated rapes by her father and her uncle, to carry the fetus to term and give birth, though she was desperate to get an abortion: would you stand with the Irish government and the rapists, or with the raped child?

2. Medical reasons. These will always exist, and the best people to make the decision are the pregnant woman herself (or someone appointed to make medical decisions on her behalf) and her doctor. The notion that the legislature are better able to decide what constitutes a "viable fetus" and should get to override the pregnant woman and her doctor, is medical and ethical nonsense.

In the UK, the law for 41 years has been that a woman has to have the agreement of two doctors to have an abortion: there is talk of changing the law to abortion on demand, no doctor's line necessary (well, the agreement of one doctor, required of necessity for D&C or prescription) in the first 13 weeks, but retaining the requirement for two doctors thereafter - and pushing the final decision date back to 28 weeks (which still amounts to 24 weeks for all practical intents and purposes: the doctors give themselves 4 weeks leeway).

This seems much more workable than the repeated attempts by pro-lifers to force women to decide more and more quickly once they get the results of late-term medical tests: a woman who discovered her fetus had Downs Syndrome, for example, used to have two or three weeks to consider her decision: the pro-lifers have now made her make her decision for termination in less than a week, which hardly seems like a positive advance.

Viable' means that (perhaps with medical help) the baby can survive outside the womb. It doesn't have to be identical in every way to the fetus inside the womb--it can survive.

For how long? A 24-week preemie may keep breathing for a while, but is extremely likely to never see their fifth birthday, and may well never see anything outside of the ICU in which they spend the few weeks of their lives.

[Sebastian]

"For how long? A 24-week preemie may keep breathing for a while, but is extremely likely to never see their fifth birthday, and may well never see anything outside of the ICU in which they spend the few weeks of their lives."

I was unable to find long term expectancy statistics. Do you have any?

I found things like this which suggest that at 24 weeks the survival rate is above 50%. My moral intution is that a 50% survival rate is plenty, unless you have evidence that a crushingly high percentage of those die without making it into the thinking years.

[Turbulence]

My case for pre-viability 2nd trimester abortion restrictions would be along the lines that the fetus isn't enough of a person to calling killing it murder at that point, but that it has at least the moral worth of a dog. We have rules against torturing or killing dogs that don't have punishments that are the same as if you were torturing and killing a person. It is a sliding scale, 1st trimester you get to treat it is disposable tissue if you want, late 2nd trimester pre-viability you have to treat it more seriously, post-viability were are at the murder stage. (And I don't fully buy into the trimester stages as the be-all and end-all anyway developmental changes happen at times other than the trimester points).

I want to thank you for taking the time to explain this clearly. I appreciate it. FWIW, I also share your discomfort with using the trimester system to make such distinctions but I also appreciate that if one needs a good rubric, it may be the best available.

You say that a 12 week old fetus should be treated as well as a dog: can you explain why? What is it about fetuses at this stage that requires we treat them as well as dogs? Do you believe that there is some developmental milestone for which the second trimester can act as a very rough proxy? Or are you suggesting it simply because we need to draw a line somewhere and its a reasonable place to do so?

Also, I don't think the dog analogy is sufficient. We ban cruelty to animals when there is no benefit whatsoever, but bodily integrity is a serious benefit. It is perfectly legal to torture animals in the course of drug testing or even cosmetics testing. Surely bodily integrity is more important than testing the latest eyeliner?

Also, in the past you've raised the point that health exemptions are dangerous because doctors can abuse that discretion to decide that any unwanted pregnancy poses a threat to the health of the mother. If I'm misrepresenting your previous statements, please let me know. Wouldn't the system you describe be subject to the exact same gaming? I thought that gestational age determinations were inherently subjective assessments, especially since when they incorporate self-reported information. Do you feel that they can be made in a sufficiently objective manner to keep illegal abortions at an acceptably low rate?

A great majority of laws aren't murder, and yet principled cases can be made regarding them nonetheless.

Very true, but it is much easier to gain public support for laws banning murder than for laws that require complex justifications. The one you provide above seems quite reasonable, but I strongly suspect that it is a far less popular position than either "murder should be outlawed" or "abortion should be banned but women should never be punished" let alone "abortion should be banned because it is murder". Does that comport with your experiences in these communities?

To be clear, you don't have a problem charging a woman who aborts a viable fetus with murder? I just want to be sure I'm understanding you.

That is correct, provided there are substantial changes made to ensure that the law is enforced equitably: i.e., upper middle class white women should see similar conviction rates as lower class women of color. At the moment, we've erected a patchwork quilt of abortion restrictions that ensure that upper class women are inconvenienced but that women of lower socio economic status are obstructed altogether. I think that's a bad outcome. However, when the punishment at stake is death or a lifetime of imprisonment, I'm unwilling to countenance such significant racial and class disparities. To be honest, I don't think our justice system is currently capable of acting equitably in cases like this, but I do think that many other countries' justice systems are.

Now, to be fair, I don't think the law will ever change in this regard: it would be a PR disaster for the anti-abortion movement and their opponents aren't exactly thrilled about putting women in prison.

[Sebastian]

"I want to thank you for taking the time to explain this clearly."

You shouldn't take that as clearly. That was dashed off.

"You say that a 12 week old fetus should be treated as well as a dog: can you explain why?"

This is why I hate that we are tied to the trimester system in these discussions. I don't know that 12 weeks is the appropriate cutoff. It probably isn't. But I'm quite certain that if my ONLY choices are to be 12 weeks or 24, that the point comes before 24.

And the dog analogy is an analogy. I'm using it to show that we can have interests in life that doesn't rise to the level of human personhood and that we protect those with non-murder proscriptions against wantonly taking or abusing such life. You shouldn't read it as if I'm arguing by analogy to dogs that because fetuses are like dogs we should protect fetuses. I'm pointing out that we find it appropriate to protect non-human life, so it isn't crazy that we might consider protecting human but pre-person life.

"Very true, but it is much easier to gain public support for laws banning murder than for laws that require complex justifications."

So what? It is easier to get support for public health care by pretending that 80 million people are chronically uninsured, but that doesn't discredit the case for public health care.

I think you are over-literalizing anyway. Political slogans are at least as much shorthand as they are propaganda. So I think you are correct in saying that "Abortion Is Murder" isn't something people strictly believe in all cases. I certainly don't. But for most pro-lifers it is shorthand for "Abortion at late stage is definitely Murder when done to viable fetuses and we can have other interests in protecting near-viable fetuses that are also thwarted by the way Roe has actually played out in the court system."

And it is easy to do as a not-crazy slogan, because NARAL's position is that killing a baby so long as it is in the womb, at whatever gestational stage, and at whatever level of viability, for any reason whatsoever, is definitely not murder and in fact should not be made illegal AT ALL. So when your opposition takes that strong of a stance and you're sloganeering, the shorthand isn't particularly misleading or confusing.